5 ms·

Great point in here about "diplomatic immunity". One of the coolest parts of traveling to out-of-the-way places. People open up to you because you're an imparti

Great point in here about "diplomatic immunity". One of the coolest parts of traveling to out-of-the-way places. People open up to you because you're an impartial observer. That said, author is annoyingly in love with himself; if you don't read the article, here's an indicative passage: "My first night ever on the island of Bali, in 1984, I fell under what I later came to see was a spell cast on me by a young local woman, who led me into the unlit back alleyways and wound me around her almost as if I were helpless. I had done what I could to domesticate the island on arrival: I bought a pirated Dire Straits cassette and an owl mask as a good-luck souvenir; I mapped out a routine, locating where I could get good cake, where to post my letters home. In any case, a part of me was still in Manhattan, where I’d been closing a long article on Iran in the twenty-fifth-floor offices of Time only a day before." Or maybe I just don't get his sense of humor, who knows.

pm90 12y ago
No, you are correct. I tried to read through the article and it was very very hard to read through the superlatives and other bullshit. I'm not a writer, but I feel that its the work of someone who hasn't written much trying to write something grand.
- teen 12y ago
  I thought that was what made the article so engrossing. When I travel outside California I find the world so much more magical, and enchanting, which I think his writing style was trying to convey.
- anindyabd 12y ago
  > I'm not a writer, but I feel that its the work of someone who hasn't written much trying to write something grand. Actually, if you scroll all the way to the bottom, you'll find that the article has been written by Pico Iyer, who "is the author of many books about travel, including Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, The Global Soul, and Sun After Dark. His latest book, The Man Within My Head, circles around Graham Greene and hauntedness." Also, according to Wikipedia, he regularly writes for the New York Times. Though to be honest with you, while I enjoyed the content of the article, I wasn't the biggest fan of the writing style either.
teen 12y ago
I think having a girl cast a spell on you is one those things that is hard to fathom until it happens. Then you start to question everything...
- lumpypua 12y ago
  It will pass. I fall in love over and over again. Tonight is my second night in columbia, a visiting american. Out dancing salsa and merengue poorly I met a gorgeous girl and danced for three hours. We danced close, my hands still smell like her hair, leg still perfumed by her pussy. She was on vacation too and was very insistent about her boyfriend. I'm on HN because I can't sleep, consumed by desire. It'll pass.
  - teen 12y ago
    Just reading this now, haha, dying laughing
neindanke 12y ago
"author is annoyingly in love with himself" I don't get that at all. The paragraph you quoted strikes me as descriptive, perhaps it could be called flowery, but I don't see the stabbing phrases associated with narcissism.
jtheory 12y ago
The piece is written by Pico Iyer; he's a fairly well-known writer (novels & travel writing). The style is fine with me, except that in this case I was actually interested to know the boring facts of the situations he was being dreamily ambiguous about.
_delirium 12y ago
> People open up to you because you're an impartial observer. A friend-of-a-friend claims that this has been very useful for her as a psychologist who works in a country where she's a foreigner. A significant number of people, in her view, just feel more comfortable talking to a foreign psychologist, in part because foreigners seem less implicated in the local system of cultural norms (they might be implicated in some other system, but not the one that the patient is worried about). It's also not a very large city, so there may be an element of foreigners being perceived as safer confidantes, since they're not as strongly tied into the local web of social & family relationships.

pm90 12y ago

No, you are correct. I tried to read through the article and it was very very hard to read through the superlatives and other bullshit. I'm not a writer, but I feel that its the work of someone who hasn't written much trying to write something grand.

teen 12y ago
I thought that was what made the article so engrossing. When I travel outside California I find the world so much more magical, and enchanting, which I think his writing style was trying to convey.
anindyabd 12y ago
> I'm not a writer, but I feel that its the work of someone who hasn't written much trying to write something grand. Actually, if you scroll all the way to the bottom, you'll find that the article has been written by Pico Iyer, who "is the author of many books about travel, including Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, The Global Soul, and Sun After Dark. His latest book, The Man Within My Head, circles around Graham Greene and hauntedness." Also, according to Wikipedia, he regularly writes for the New York Times. Though to be honest with you, while I enjoyed the content of the article, I wasn't the biggest fan of the writing style either.

teen 12y ago

I think having a girl cast a spell on you is one those things that is hard to fathom until it happens. Then you start to question everything...

lumpypua 12y ago
It will pass. I fall in love over and over again. Tonight is my second night in columbia, a visiting american. Out dancing salsa and merengue poorly I met a gorgeous girl and danced for three hours. We danced close, my hands still smell like her hair, leg still perfumed by her pussy. She was on vacation too and was very insistent about her boyfriend. I'm on HN because I can't sleep, consumed by desire. It'll pass.
- teen 12y ago
  Just reading this now, haha, dying laughing

neindanke 12y ago

"author is annoyingly in love with himself" I don't get that at all. The paragraph you quoted strikes me as descriptive, perhaps it could be called flowery, but I don't see the stabbing phrases associated with narcissism.

jtheory 12y ago

The piece is written by Pico Iyer; he's a fairly well-known writer (novels & travel writing). The style is fine with me, except that in this case I was actually interested to know the boring facts of the situations he was being dreamily ambiguous about.

_delirium 12y ago

> People open up to you because you're an impartial observer. A friend-of-a-friend claims that this has been very useful for her as a psychologist who works in a country where she's a foreigner. A significant number of people, in her view, just feel more comfortable talking to a foreign psychologist, in part because foreigners seem less implicated in the local system of cultural norms (they might be implicated in some other system, but not the one that the patient is worried about). It's also not a very large city, so there may be an element of foreigners being perceived as safer confidantes, since they're not as strongly tied into the local web of social & family relationships.